The show this half-season has shifted focus to Olivia Baker’s alien sightings, D’Arcy’s attempt at romance and attempt to regain her ski career, Ben’s attempts to boost the town’s profiles with a resort (precipitating one of TVdom’s most avoidable marital spats). Some thoughts:
1. Whether Terry O’Quinn’s character was going to be killed or not was as good of a cliffhanger as ever. I found myself preparing to disown my allegiances to Harry if he went through with that murder, which is an indication that the show still has me frantically guessing well into its second season. A good sign.
2. Because we’re introduced much earlier to Ben as an audience and he’s constantly being belittled by the town he tries to do good for, he’s pretty rootable. Therefore, his wife Kate has an uphill battle at trying to win the audience’s affections and her arc has been based on adapting to the town. Kate’s love story is with Patience (as evidenced by the bonding with the ladies of Patience) and it’s even tied with her reconnection to Ben (the two are often a couple in distress) because she has to understand what he loves. Therefore, it’s been jarring to see the thing that binds them become such a source of division in a melodramatic story plot that seems like it’s halfway to becoming Kramer vs Kramer.
3. The D’Arcy/Asta relationship is becoming the key to the show. The only hitch was that, we (I’m presuming the audience was with me) couldn’t bear to see the inevitable breaking point when Asta’s secret was going to jeopardize her friendship. How often does the show rely on the catharsis of Asta and D’Arcy making up from a fight? About the right amount, I’d say.
4. If D’Arcy Bloom was an Olympian in 2016 and the show is set in the present, that means that her big comeback is happening 15 years later after she was at the top of the world. The number of people who have qualified for the Olympics in a competitive sport at the age of 40 or older is probably extremely tiny (I’m sure archery or golf might be exceptions). No wonder she needs painkillers! Even then, that’s not going to give her the leg strength of a mogul skier in their 20s. Still, despite some real gaps in realism, the subplot with D’Arcy as an Olympic skier provides some rare TV insight into post-Olympic depression I’m thankful for.
5. It’s time to see Judy be more than the punch line of a joke. Some shows like Parks and Recreation or Cheers have the running gang of the celebration of the found family being contradicted by someone who’s the butt of every joke. The incongruity provides humor, sure, but this is a show that’s more about tugging at the heart strings than easy jokes, and too many of us in the audience find Judy endearing.-
6. Deputy Baker is pretty far removed from the central action to be getting such thick side plots but it can work based on the strength of the material. Her fight to stand up to her boss was plenty juicy, but the “Close Encounters of a Third Kind” subplot this half-season feels thin in certain situations. When it’s about putting the pieces together better than her boss, but her wonder that aliens exist feels like a jarring genre shift. We’re kind of past the point of caring that aliens exist so she’s not necessarily much of an audience surrogate.
7. I’ve always felt the show had a kid-oriented vibe taking cues from 90s shows like “Who’s Afraid of the Dark”, “Goose Bumps”, or “The Outer Limits” and a lot of that is in the score, which alternates between sci-fi eeriness and semi-comedic bounciness.
8. As the show moves along, it’s smart that any resolution on the Asta/Jay relationship seems to be slow. This is a good way to keep the show from burning through plot.
9. Ah, that short-lived Judy/Harry relationship that lasted about 37 seconds. Priceless!
10. I’ve always theorized that the monotone voice of Harry is only what we hear as the audience, and not what’s happening in-universe. Otherwise, wouldn’t the denizens of Patience be far more suspicious of Harry? After all, there is no accent that matches his voice other than alien or mentally disabled and they trust him to be a doctor. Unfortunately, my theory became disproven when D’Arcy who made fun of his voice. On the other hand, it’s a good sign of that D’Arcy’s development as a less clingy person, that she’s willing to so readily make fun of someone she was previously smitten with.
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